by Nora Roberts
He found it almost unbearably arousing to have her inexperienced hands undress him. With his eyes closed he traced kisses over her brow, her temples, her jaw, while his body tensed and hardened from the hesitant movements of her fingers. It was torture of the most exquisite kind. He realized that he was moving slowly not only for Serena and her innocence but for himself. Every instant, every heartbeat they shared here would be remembered.
She tugged off his shirt, her gaze skimming down over his bare flesh as delicately as her fingertips did. Slowly, almost afraid her hand might pass through him, she reached out to touch.
They were still kneeling, their bodies swaying closer, their breath mingling as mouth was drawn to mouth. Her mind began to whirl as she stroked her hands over him. His skin was smooth, while the muscles beneath were hard. She felt awe, as well as excitement, wonder, as well as nerves. Who would have thought a man could feel beautiful?
The sun warmed his skin as it poured over the little patch of ground they had chosen. Birds trilled in the wood beyond. On the far side of the lake, deer came quietly to drink.
As he nuzzled her neck, she felt herself go weak. She thought she knew what was to follow, but the pleasure was more than she had ever dreamed it could be.
His hands were very sure as they cupped her breasts, dragging a moan out of her as the rough material shifted and rubbed over her skin. In submission, in acceptance, in demand, her back arched and her head fell back, leaving him free to plunder. She felt his mouth cover her, nipping and sucking through the material. The tingling started deep within her stomach and spread until her body seemed alive with nerves. Then what had gone before vanished from her mind as he peeled the chemise aside and found her flesh.
She cried out in surprise and pleasure, her hands reaching for his shoulders and gripping for balance. Yet she felt as though she were falling still.
She shuddered against him, strained against him, confused, delighted, desperate for more. What she had offered, she had offered of her own free will. What she gave now, she gave without thought, without reason. When she tumbled back on the blanket, she was stripped of defenses and open to whatever commands he might give.
He had to fight back the first sharp-edged need to take. It was like a knife turning slowly in his gut. Her arms were wrapped around him, her breasts, small and white, shivering at each touch. He saw that her eyes were clouded, not with fear, no longer with confusion, but with newly awakened passions. If he were to take her now, as his body begged to, she would open for him.
But the need in his heart beat as strong as the need in his loins. He would give her more than she had asked, perhaps more than either of them could understand.
“I’ve dreamed of this, Serena.” His voice was low as he bent his head for the next kiss. “I’ve dreamed of undressing you like this.” He slipped the chemise from her. Now only the breeze and Brigham caressed her. “Of touching what no man has touched.” He skimmed a fingertip up her thigh and watched her mouth tremble open in speechless pleasure.
“Brigham. I want you.”
“And you shall have me, my love.” He circled the rigid point of her breast with his tongue, then drew it slowly, almost painfully, into his mouth. “Before you do, there is much, much more.”
If she could have spoken again, she would have said it was impossible. Her body seemed sated already, sensation rolling over sensation, shudder wracked by shudder. Then he began.
The eyes that had begun to close flew open in stunned awakening. Her hips arched up, meeting his questing lips just before the first flood of terrifying pleasure poured through her. Gasping, she groped for him, only to find her damp palms sliding off his skin as he moved over her, lighting fires where he willed.
The roaring in her ears prevented her from hearing herself call his name again and again. But he heard. Nothing he had heard before or would hear again would ever sound quite so sweet. She moved under him, bucking, twisting, trembling as he found and exploited new secrets. The dark taste of passion filled his mouth, driving him to find more, to give more.
Her skin was hot and damp wherever he touched, making him mad with thoughts of how she would be when he filled her. Could she know how weak she made him, how completely she satisfied him? His mind teemed with thoughts of her, memories he knew would follow him until he died. Each time he took a breath he drew in the scent of her skin, sheened now with her passion and his. No other woman would ever tempt him again, because no other woman would be Serena.
She wanted to beg him to stop. She wanted to beg him never to stop. Each breath she dragged into her lungs seemed to clog there until she feared she would die from lack of air or the surplus of it. Her eyes filled with tears, not from sorrow or regret but from the ache of a beauty so great she knew she could never describe it. Her strength ebbed and flowed, rushing into her like wildfire, then pouring out like a waterfall. But weak or strong, she had never known pleasure so huge. In some corner of her brain she wanted to know if he felt the same. But each time she began to ask, he would touch her again and send her thoughts spinning into a void of sensation.
When his lips came back to hers, she tasted desperation on them. Wanting to soothe, she answered with her heart, pulling him close.
He slipped into her, fighting with every fiber of his being to take her gently, struggling against every urge to plunge in to his own satisfaction. Sweat pooled at the base of his spine. The muscles in his arms quivered as he braced over her and watched, as he had dreamed of watching, her face as he made her his.
She cried out, but not in pain. Perhaps there was pain, but it was so smothered in pleasure that she couldn’t feel it. Only him. She could feel only him as he moved into her, became part of her. With her eyes open and focused on his, she matched his rhythm. Slow … beautifully, gloriously slow. The moment when they joined would be savored, like the finest of old wines, the purest of promises.
He bent to take her lips again and swallowed her sigh. He could feel her pulse around him as clearly as he could feel her hands stroke down his back. When he thrust deep inside her, she arched and the sigh became a moan. Now it was she who changed the rhythm and he who followed. It no longer mattered who was rider, who was ridden, as they raced together. His last thought as his pleasure burst into her was that he had found home.
* * *
She wasn’t certain she would ever move again, or that she would ever wish to. Her skin was cooling now that the heat of passion had faded into a softer glow of contentment. They lay tangled in the blanket, with the shadows growing long around them. His face was buried in her hair, his hand cupped loosely at her breast.
How much time had passed she couldn’t be sure. She knew the sun was no longer high overhead, but there was a timelessness she needed to cling to for just a little longer.
It was almost possible, if she kept her eyes closed and refused to think, to believe it would always be like this. With the afternoon shimmering around them, the woods quiet but for the call of birds, it was difficult to believe that politics and war could pull them apart.
She loved as she had never thought to love, in a way she hadn’t known was possible. If only it could all be as simple as a blanket spread beside the water.
“I love you, Rena.”
She opened her eyes to see that he was watching her. “Aye. I know you do. And I love you.” She traced her fingers along his face as if to memorize it. “I wish we could stay like this.”
“We’ll be like this again. Soon.”
She shifted away from him to reach for her chemise.
“Can you doubt that? Now?”
It was more important than ever to keep her voice steady. She loved him too much, much too much, to beg him to stay. She began to lace up her bodice. “I know that you love me, and that you wish it could be so. I know that what we shared here will never be shared with anyone else.”
“You don’t think I’ll come back.” He dragged his shirt on and wondered how any one woman could pull so many emotion
s from his heart.
She touched his hand. She had no regrets, and she needed him to understand that. “I think if you come back, you’ll come for the sake of the Prince. It’s right that you should.”
“I see.” He began to dress methodically. “So you believe what happened here between us will be forgotten when I reach London.”
“No.” She stopped struggling with her own buttons and reached for him. “No, I believe what happened here will be remembered always. When I’m very old and I feel the first hint of spring I’ll think of today and of you.”
The anger came quickly, making him dig his fingers into her arms. “Do you think that’s enough for me? If you do, you’re either very stupid or mad.”
“It’s all there can be—” she began, but her words slipped down her throat as he shook her.
“When I come back to Scotland, I come for you. Make no mistake, Serena. And when this war is over, I’ll take you with me.”
“If I had only myself to think of, I would go.” She clutched at his coat, willing him to understand. “Can’t you see that I would die slowly with the shame to my family?”
“No, by God, I can’t see that being my wife would bring your family shame.”
“Your wife?” She could barely whisper the words, then jerked back as if he had slapped her. “Marriage?”
“Of course marriage. What did you think—?” Then he saw, and saw clearly, just what it was she believed he was asking her. His anger turned inward until it was a dull heat in the pit of his stomach. “Is this what you thought I meant the last time we were here?” he demanded. “Is this what you needed to think through?” His laugh was quick and humorless. “You think highly of me, Serena.”
“I …” Because her legs were weak, she sank limply onto a rock. “I thought … I understood that men took mistresses, and …”
“And so they do,” he said curtly. “And so I have, but only a dim-witted fool would have thought I was offering you anything but my heart and my name.”
“How was I supposed to know you meant marriage?” She sprang up to face him again. “You never said so.”
“I’ve already spoken with your father.” His voice was stiff as he snatched up the plaid.
“You’ve spoken with my father?” she repeated, measuring each word. “You spoke with my father without ever speaking to me?”
“It’s proper to ask your father’s permission.”
“The devil with proper.” She grabbed the blanket from him. “You had no right going behind my back to him without ever saying a word to me.”
He took a long look at her tumbled hair, at her lips still swollen from his. “I believe I did more than say a word to you, Serena.”
She flushed, then marched over to toss the blanket over her horse. “I’m not so green that I think what has passed here always leads to marriage.” She might have struggled into the saddle if Brigham hadn’t whirled her around.
“Do you think I’m in the habit of seducing virgins and then making them my mistresses?”
“I don’t know your habits.”
“Then know this,” he began as the horse danced skittishly aside. “I intend you for my wife.”
“You intend. You intend.” She shoved him away. “Perhaps in England you can bully, my lord, but here I have some say in my life. And I say I won’t marry you, and you must be mad to think it.”
“Did you lie when you said you love me?” he demanded.
“No. No, but—” The words were lost as his lips crushed down on hers.
“Then you lie when you say you won’t be my wife.”
“I can’t be,” she said desperately. “How can I leave here and go with you to England?”
His fingers tensed on her arms. “So, it comes down to that once more.”
“You must see, you must, how it would be.” She began to speak very fast, taking his arms, as well, willing him to understand. “I would live there because I loved you, because you asked it of me, and end by bringing shame on both of us. You would hate me before a year had passed. I’m not meant to be an earl’s wife, Brigham.”
“An English earl,” he corrected.
She took the time to draw a deep breath. “I’m a laird’s daughter, it’s true, but I’m not fool enough to believe that’s enough. I would hate being trapped in London when I want to ride through the hills. You yourself have told me more than once that I’m not a lady. I’ll never be one. I would make a poor wife for the earl of Ashburn.”
“Then you will make a poor one, but you will be my wife.”
“No.” She dried her cheeks with her knuckles. “I will not.”
“You’ll have no choice, Rena, when I go to your father and tell him I’ve compromised you.”
The tears stopped, to be replaced by shock, then fury. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I would,” he said grimly.
“He would kill you.”
Brigham only raised a brow. Beneath them, his eyes were dark and growing cold. Men he had faced in battle would have recognized the look. “I believe the father is not quite so bloodthirsty as the daughter.” Before she could speak again, he lifted her into the saddle. “If you refuse to marry me because you love me, then you will marry me because you are commanded.”
“I would rather marry a two-headed toad.”
He launched himself into his saddle beside her. “But you will marry me, my dear, smiling or weeping. My journey to London should give you time to think sensibly. I will speak with your father and make arrangements when I return.”
After sending him a furious look, Serena kicked her heels. She hoped he broke his neck on the ride to London.
And when he left the following morning, she wept her own broken heart into her pillow.
Chapter 10
He had missed London, the pace of it, the look of it, the smell of it. Most of his life had been spent there or at the graceful old manor home of his ancestors in the country. He was well-known in polite society and had no trouble finding company for a game of cards at one of the fashionable clubs or interesting conversation over dinner. Mothers of marriageable daughters made certain to include the wealthy earl of Ashburn on their guest lists.
He had been six weeks in town, and spring was at its best. His own garden, one of the finest in the city, boasted vistas of lush lawns and colorful blossoms. The rain that had drummed almost incessantly as April had begun had worked its magic and was now replaced by balmy golden days that lured pretty women in their silk dresses and feathered hats into the parks and shops.
There were balls and assemblies, card parties and levees. A man with his title, his reputation and his purse could have a comfortable life here with little inconvenience and much pleasure.
He had indeed missed London. It was his home. It had taken him much less than six weeks to discover that it was no longer his heart.
That was in Scotland now. Not a day passed that he didn’t think of the hard Highland winter or of how Serena had warmed it. As he looked out at the crowded streets and the strollers in their walking coats and hats of the latest fashion, he wondered what spring was like in Glenroe. And whether Serena ever sat by the lake and thought of him.
He would have gone back weeks earlier, but his work for the Prince was taking longer than had been thought, and the results were less satisfactory than anyone had foreseen.
The Jacobites in England were great in number, but the number among them who showed eagerness to raise their sword for the untried Prince was much less. On Lord George’s advice, Brigham had spoken to many groups, giving them an outline of the mood of the Highland clans and conveying what communications he had received from the Prince himself. He had ridden as far as Manchester, and had held a council as close as his own drawing room.
Each was as risky as the other. The government was uneasy, and the rumor of war with France louder than ever. Stuart sympathizers would not be suffered gladly, and active supporters would be imprisoned, at best. Memories of public executions
and deportations were still fresh.
After six weeks he had the hope, but only the hope, that if Charles could act quickly, and begin his campaign, his English followers would join him.
They had so much to lose, Brigham thought. How well he knew it. Homes, lands, titles. It was a difficult thing to fight for something as distant as a cause when you gambled your name and your fortune, as well as your life.
Turning, he studied the portrait of his grandmother. His decision had already been made. Perhaps it had been made when he had still been a schoolboy, his head on her knee as she wove tales of exiled kings and a fight for justice.
It was dangerous to tarry much longer in London. The government had a way of uncovering rebels and dealing with them with nasty efficiency. Thus far, Brigham’s name had kept him above suspicion, but he knew rumors were flying. Now that war with France was once more inevitable, so was talk of a new Jacobite uprising.
Brigham had never hidden his travels to France, to Italy, to Scotland. If anyone decided to shift the blocks of his last few years around, they would come up with a very interesting pattern.
So he must leave, Brigham thought, kicking a smoldering log in the dying fire. This time, he would go alone and under the cover of night. When he returned to London next, it would be with Serena. And they would stand where he stood now and toast the true king and his regent.
He returned to Scotland for the Prince, as Serena had said. But he also returned to claim what was his. Rebellion aside, there was one battle he was determined to win.